Getting ‘Bent to Lick Cancer

The first weekend of August is set aside for the Pan-Mass Challenge, when 6,000 or so of my closest friends and I will be bicycling to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s Jimmy Fund.

I’m riding 200 miles over two days, as I have done most years for over a decade. (I’ve been riding my recumbent bike for a while now — hence “getting ‘bent.”) This year will be “lucky thirteen” for me — and I’m not only a rider, I’m a cancer survivor. It’s personal. Like many of you, I have also seen many friends and family members afflicted by cancer. Some have lived, and some have died.

Incredible progress is being made in diagnosing and treating the hundreds of diseases we call “cancer.” The researchers and clinicians need our help in order to do more. We need to take action.

Like many of you, I have decided to do something to help lick cancer, and that something is forging a partnership with the Dana Farber, and with all of you reading this post, through the Pan-Mass Challenge. The Dana Farber does the research and treats the patients. I ride my bike. The PMC folks organize the peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches and all the other incredible logistics. You open your wallets.

Click here to sponsor my ride. 100% of your donation goes straight to the Dana Farber. The peanut butter is donated. I pay to ride. It’s all about getting the dollars to the researchers and clinicians.

The PMC is a village on wheels. It’s a weekend-long party. It’s bright and it’s loud. It’s sweaty and it’s a little weird. It’s a mass of people brought together in time and space in a way that’s out of time, that creates our own space. It’s a way that we spend two days a year on another plane, bound together in service of a cause that’s bigger than any one of us.

Over the life of the PMC we have raised over half a billion dollars (yes, billion with a “b”) for the Dana Farber. This year’s goal is $46 million. To reach that goal, we need your help. Please give what you can, and please share this post with everyone you know who you think might be interested in supporting the cause.